PocDoc delivers 3,442 heart health checks across 8 partners in a single month, accelerating the UK's shift from treatment to prevention

PocDoc, the UK's leading digital diagnostics company, delivered 3,442 cardiovascular disease screenings across eight NHS, pharmacy, employer and community partners in March 2026 - its biggest month of screening to date and a demonstration of what scaled, community-based prevention looks like in practice.

Cardiovascular disease is the UK's biggest killer. It causes over a quarter of all deaths - around 170,000 a year, an average of 460 people every day¹. Over 8 million people in the UK are living with heart or circulatory disease², and around 100,000 hospital admissions each year are due to heart attacks alone - one every five minutes².

Yet most people have never had their cholesterol checked, their heart age calculated, or their ten-year cardiovascular risk assessed. The screening gap is vast: only 9% of eligible adults aged 40–59 have attended an NHS Health Check³, and the National Audit Office found that fewer than half of the eligible population attended a health check in 2023/24, with no effective system for commissioning them⁴.

PocDoc is closing that gap. Its Healthy Heart Check takes under 8 minutes from fingerprick to full results on a smartphone - delivering a complete cholesterol panel, NHS Heart Age, BMI, and QRISK3 score. No lab. No GP wait. No guessing. Results integrate directly into the patient's electronic health record and the NHS App.

March 2026: 3,442 checks, 8 partners, 1 mission

In a single month, PocDoc delivered cardiovascular screenings across the breadth of the health system - from GP surgeries to NHS Integrated Care Boards, from community pharmacies to employers and football clubs:

The Brooke Surgery - 1,000 tests in 1 week. A primary care partnership demonstrating the speed at which PocDoc can screen an entire practice population, freeing up GP capacity while identifying at-risk patients who might otherwise have waited months - or never been screened at all.

NHS West Yorkshire ICB - 960 tests completed. Building on PocDoc's established partnership with West Yorkshire, where the Healthy Heart Check is embedded across community health programmes, universities, and local pharmacies - reaching people who might not otherwise engage with traditional healthcare.

Puri Pharmacy - 300 tests in 3 days. Delivered via PocDoc's Neighbourhood Testing Bus at St Mary's Church in Heathrow Villages, this was the first time PocDoc integrated a community pharmacy and a GP federation (The Confederation, Hillingdon) in a single neighbourhood programme.

NHS North East and North Cumbria - 158 tests in 1 week. Continuing PocDoc's multi-year partnership with Health Innovation NENC and the local ICB, targeting communities in a region where CVD accounts for 24% of all deaths, and the North East has the lowest healthy life expectancy of any region in England⁶.

Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust — 155 tests in 1 day. A single-day screening event demonstrating the throughput PocDoc can achieve in an NHS trust setting - 155 patients screened in one day, each receiving results within minutes.

Thames Freeport - 687 tests completed. A workplace screening programme reaching employees in one of the UK's major economic zones. This matters because heart disease is the single largest factor behind people leaving the workforce due to ill health - someone with a CVD diagnosis has a 22% likelihood of leaving their job, higher than cancer at 16% or mental health at 14%⁷. Around 30% of people who are economically inactive have a heart, blood pressure or circulatory health condition⁷.

E4 Network - 102 tests in 1 month. A sustained community screening programme delivering consistent monthly volume.

Cambridge United FC - 80 tests completed. Bringing cardiovascular screening into a football club setting - building on PocDoc's proven model of delivering health checks at Middlesbrough FC's Riverside Stadium, and meeting people in the places they already gather.

Why this matters: the human and economic cost of inaction

The scale of PocDoc's March 2026 programme is significant not because of the number alone, but because of what those 3,442 checks represent against the backdrop of a growing national crisis.

CVD-related productivity losses from morbidity alone cost £1.48 billion in 2021/22, with total indirect costs — including premature mortality and informal care - reaching £12.4 billion⁸. An estimated 65.4 million working days were lost to incapacity from coronary heart disease alone⁹ — and that's just CHD, not all cardiovascular disease. For context, total UK sickness absence in 2024 was 148.9 million days¹⁰.

CVD accounts for 36% of premature deaths in men and 27% in women¹¹. Yet around 80% of heart disease deaths are considered avoidable¹². The gap between what is preventable and what is currently being prevented represents one of the largest missed opportunities in UK public health.

The workplace dimension is particularly stark. Research from Vitality's Britain's Healthiest Workplace study, conducted with RAND Europe and the University of Cambridge, found that around 1 in 5 employees (19%) suffer from at least one lifestyle-related chronic condition such as heart disease, diabetes or high blood pressure¹³. Nearly two-thirds of employees had at least two lifestyle risk factors putting them at serious risk of future ill health - yet one third of those with three or more risk factors believed they were in "good" or "very good" health¹³. Meanwhile, 81% of UK employees have at least one lifestyle health risk, and the average employee lost approximately 50 productive days in 2023¹⁴. People who feel fine are walking around with undetected risk. The only way to find them is to screen them.

This is exactly why PocDoc's Thames Freeport partnership matters. Employer-based screening doesn't just identify risk -it reaches the working-age population that the traditional NHS Health Check programme is failing to engage. Only 9% of eligible 40–59 year olds have attended an NHS Health Check³ - the very demographic most likely to be at their desks when they should be getting screened.

Earlier detection saves lives - and billions

NHS research shows that every digital health check can save up to 20 minutes of GP time¹⁵, and early detection could prevent up to 80% of CVD cases - equivalent to saving an estimated 136,000 lives in the UK each year¹⁶.

The economic case is equally compelling. CVD costs the UK economy an estimated £28 billion annually, including £12 billion in direct healthcare costs¹⁷. Research from the NHS Confederation and Carnall Farrar found that better-targeted prevention spending could unlock an additional £11 billion in annual return on investment, with the top 20 prevention interventions by ROI all being community-based, returning between £6.90 and £34.75 per pound invested¹⁸.

Meanwhile, the cardiology waiting list in England has grown 82% this decade to over 421,000¹⁹ - growing faster than overall NHS waiting lists. Every person PocDoc screens and identifies early is one fewer person joining that queue.

A model that spans the entire health system

What makes PocDoc's March 2026 results distinctive is the breadth of partners. In a single month, PocDoc delivered screening across:

Primary care (The Brooke Surgery)

NHS Integrated Care Boards (West Yorkshire, North East and North Cumbria)

NHS Trusts (Black Country Healthcare)

Community pharmacy (Puri Pharmacy)

Employers (Thames Freeport)

Community networks (E4 Network)

Sports clubs (Cambridge United FC)

This isn't a pilot programme confined to one setting. It is a scaled, proven model that works across every part of the health and care ecosystem - from GP surgeries to warehouses, from pharmacies to football stadiums. The technology is the same. The clinical pathway is the same. The results are the same. What changes is the location - and that is exactly the point.

The government's 10 Year Health Plan, published in July 2025, calls for three strategic shifts: from hospital to community, from sickness to prevention, and from analogue to digital²⁰. PocDoc's March 2026 programme is all three shifts in action, at scale.